What Is Your Knitting Style? [A How To Video Knitting Tutorial]

These Are The 6 Most Common Knitting Styles

There are so many different knitting styles out there which can be quite confusing. This is especially true if you are just starting out and don’t know which style to go for.

Or maybe you are getting confused when you see video tutorials using different styles?

Personally, I am a continental knitter and to me the English or American style looks really awkward. However, I am sure that is the same for an English or American knitter looking at Continental knitter knitting.

Anyway, we though we would share with you a great video that Staci over at Very Pink has put together.

In the video, she demonstrates the basics of some of the most common knitting styles out there. The knitting styles she looks at are:

Portuguese

English or American or Throwing

Flicking or Lever

Continental or Picking

Combination

Mirror or Backwards.

What is your knitting style? Would you like to try one of these other styles? Leave a comment and let us know!

Watch Staci and see her demonstrate the 6 most common styles of knitting!

Continental. Thank you….I never knew what it was called! People have commented that my knitting style looks so simple and easy, probably since I don’t have to constantly lift my arm to wrap the yarn around the needle.

Lacy

Flicking/Lever knitter here. It’s smooth, fast and oh so easy. I’ve tried them all and I can truthfully say without reservation flicking/lever knitting is the best way to knit. At least for me! ❤️

Anonymous

I knit Russian style!

Anonymous

Russian combo knitting here,

Rhea Hinshaw

I believe that with the continental style the stitches are not twisted if that is the only way the yarn is held. I work into the back of the stitch (yarn on the needle is looped with the front edge on the left side and what you called the leading edge on the back right) . When I purl the needle goes into the back side of the loop again . My yarn is held in the left hand and the only part of my hand that moves is my index finger so when I am doing ribbing my finger just switches from front to back of the needles. My mother taught me her way of knitting and she always said she had learned it from an old Scandinavian book. (BTW, watching people on TV knit the “American” method drives me crazy and I’m always yelling at the TV asking why they’re knitting the slow. awkward stupid way LOL)

Marilee T

Combined or Russian combo here. Until recently I just thought it “weird”. Glad to find compadres here. Managed to figure out to reverse the K2tog and SSK all by myself! Taught by my mother, who was taught by her mother, etc.

Nan Thomson

I would like to have seen a demonstration of the Portuguese style.

Joan Scoggin

It’s my understanding, and I think it is in Principles of Knitting as well, that “continental/English/American” refers to which hand holds the yarn – ie continental would usually be the left hand. “Throwing or picking” refers to either yarn over the top or from underneath, regardless of anything else going on. “Western” refers to which direction the stitch faces – in this case, toward the left. “Eastern” knit stitches face east, or to the right, and they are not called “twisted” which is an entirely different thing. “Twisted knitting” or twisted stitches are rotated once so the legs cross over at the bottom, usually with the back leg crossing in front of the front leg, which is also sometimes called Bavarian or Austrian knitting — this creates stitches that lift noticeably higher from a background of purl stitches than untwisted ones do, and they are less flexible than untwisted stitches. Additionally, you can knit ambidextrously rather than with one dominant hand, which is what I do, and I therefore do not need to turn the work around unless it seems easier to me. So, basically, I am an ambidextrous eastern knitter with continental hold. It freaks people out to watch me knit – not because it’s awkward, but because it is almost brutally efficient and fast – I’m the fastest knitter I’ve ever met here in the States, although I am slowing down in my senior years.

Yvonne Henderson

I have been knitting for about 60yrs, Taught by my Mother, I knit with right needle tucked under my right arm. Works for me and I can knit quickly. One thing I can’t do is successfully use Circular Needles so any pattern that requires them I have to adapt. Annoying but that is how it is.

Lydia

Whee! I’m a combination and mirror knitter. No wonder people look confused when I knit.

Mary

I’m left handed and knit by “throwing” have been knitting since I was 11

Debra

English, American it is the way I learned. It does hurt your wrist after awhile.

Priscilla

i knit the same way as Yvonne Henderson (above), with the needle tucked under my right arm …. and, like Yvonne, I need long needles. I was taught by my mum and she would take the knitting off me if I didn’t have the needle tucked under my arm. I am s glad she did as I can knit fairly fast. I thought it was the Scottish way as that is where I lived.

Well, I am Scottish too, and knit with the needle under my arm too, so you may be right! I live in Greece and my friends here constantly comment on the style. I was beginning to develop a complex about it so I am glad to find that I’m not alone.

Anonymous

I knit American /English and hold my needle like a pencil.. yarn over my right pinky…knit faster than anyone I know lol.